Republicans Are in Pitched Battles to Out-Trump Each Other

When Georgia state senator Michael Williams became the first elected official in his state to endorse Donald Trump for president, and then Trump won, he probably figured he had a “lane” to higher office all by himself. And indeed, he’s running for governor this year. But he’s having a tough time standing out as a Trumpian wild man.

If there are any two things Republican voters identify with Trump, it would probably be his pledge to clean up the “swamp” created by career pols in Washington, and his angry opposition to undocumented immigrants he blamed for a largely imaginary crime wave. So here are the ads being run by two of Williams’s rivals who are, at this point, battling for a runoff spot opposite Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle in next week’s Georgia gubernatorial primary. This is from “conservative outsider” Hunter Hill:

And this is from Secretary of State Brian Kemp:

And for good measure, Kemp offers to “round up criminal illegals and take ‘em home myself” in his “big pickup truck.”

I’m guessing the pickup-truck line gave poor Michael Williams an idea for how to one-up his suddenly Trumpian opponents. Nobody’s going to top Williams’s “deportation bus” for anti-immigrant zaniness:

From the mania infecting Georgia Republicans about “criminal illegals” and “sanctuary cities,” you probably wouldn’t know that this is a tightly GOP-controlled state that’s already passed two laws that force cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Yes, there are two (out of 159) counties and one tiny city that limit cooperation with ICE. But it’s hardly an epidemic, and there have been no reports of released immigrants committing violent crimes.

It’s sometimes hard to remember that the last Republican president before Trump was a staunch conservative who nonetheless supported comprehensive immigration reform — or “amnesty,” as it is now known in much of the GOP — and for that matter, didn’t attack experience in government as prima facie evidence of corruption or godless liberalism. This is very much Donald Trump’s party now, and in the rush to sing hymns to his politics and his policies, early supporters like Michael Williams are in danger of getting trampled underfoot.

But Williams did get a break: YouTube took down his “Deportation Bus” video on grounds that it violates the platform’s “hate speech” rules. And this gave the Trumpiest of the Trump fans in the gubernatorial race a fresh opportunity to appeal to his party’s conservative “base,” as The Hill reports:

#BREAKING: I’m told the entire @BPDAlerts Emergency Response Team has resigned from the team, a total of 57 officers, as a show of support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving Martin Gugino, 75. They are still employed, but no longer on ERT. @news4buffalo

In case you were wondering about the unmarked federal agents dotting Washington

Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily armed riot police around Washington, D.C., in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or names badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters have identified some of them as belonging to Bureau of Prisons’ riot police units from Texas, but others remain a mystery.

The images of such heavily armed, military-style men in America’s capital are disconcerting, in part, because absent identifying signs of actual authority the rows of federal officers appear all-but indistinguishable from the open-carrying, white militia members cos-playing as survivalists who have gathered in other recent protests against pandemic stay-at-home orders. Some protesters have compared the anonymous armed officers to Russia’s “Little Green Men,” the soldiers-dressed-up-as-civilians who invaded and occupied western Ukraine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that federal officers identify themselves and their agency.

To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).